Sunny Pointer: Designing a mouse pointer for people with peripheral vision loss

We introduce here a new mouse cursor designed to facilitate the use of the mouse by people with peripheral vision loss. The pointer consists of a collection of converging straight lines covering the whole screen and following the position of the mouse cursor. We measured its positive effects in a group of participants with peripheral vision loss of different kinds and found that it can reduce by a factor of seven the time required to complete a targeting task using the mouse. Using eye tracking, we show that this system makes it possible to initiate the movement toward the target without having to precisely locate the mouse pointer. Using Fitts' Law, we compare these performances with those of full visual field users in order to understand the relation between the accuracy of the estimated mouse cursor position and the index of performance obtained with our tool.